Pablo Neruda

“¿Qué significa persistir en el callejón de la muerte?”

“Cuando estamos lejos de la patria nunca la recordamos en sus inviernos. La distancia borra las penas del invierno, las poblaciones desamparadas, los niños descalzos en el frío. El arte del recuerdo sólo nos trae campiñas verdes, flores amarillas y rojas, el cielo azulado del himno nacional.”

“Algún día en cualquier parte, en cualquier lugar indefectiblemente te encontrarás a ti mismo, y ésa, sólo ésa, puede ser la más feliz o la más amarga de tus horas.”

“ThenScale by scale,We strip offThe delicacyAnd eatThe peaceful mushOf its green heart.”

“To feel the love of people whom we love is a fire that feeds our life.”

“In this part of the story I am the one whodies, the only one, and I will die of love because I love you,because I love you, Love, in fire and in blood.”

“so I wait for you like a lonely housetill you will see me again and live in me.Till then my windows ache.”

“I am everybody and every time,I always call myself by your name.”

“I have been a lucky man. To feel the intimacy of brothers is a marvelous thing in life. To feel the love of people whom we love is a fire that feeds our life. But to feel the affection that comes from those whom we do not know, from those unknown to us, who are watching over our sleep and solitude, over our dangers and our weaknesses – that is something still greater and more beautiful because it widens out the boundaries of our being, and unites all living things.”

“Sonnet XVIII do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,in secret, between the shadow and the soul.I love you as the plant that never bloomsbut carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;so I love you because I know no other way than this: where I does not exist, nor you,so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep. ”

“And our problems will crumble apart, the soul / blow through like a wind, and here where we livewill all be clean again, with fresh bread on the table.”

“A book,a book fullof human touches,of shirts,a bookwithout loneliness, with menand tools,a bookis victory.”

“Maybe nothingness is to be without your presence, without you moving, slicing the noon like a blue flower, without you walking later through the fog and the cobbles, without the light you carry in your hand, golden, which maybe others will not see,which maybe no one knew was growing like the red beginnings of a rose. In short, without your presence: without your coming suddenly, incitingly, to know my life, gust of a rosebush, wheat of wind: since then I am because you are, since then you are, I am, we are, and through love I will be, you will be, we will be.”

“Don't go far off, not even for a day,because I don't know how to say it - a day is longand I will be waiting for you, as inan empty station when the trains areparked off somewhere else, asleep.Don't leave me, even for an hour, because thenthe little drops of anguish will all run together,the smoke that roams looking for a home will driftinto me, choking my lost heart.Oh, may your silhouette never dissolveon the beach, may your eyelids never flutterinto the empty distance. Don't LEAVE me fora second, my dearest, because in that moment you'llhave gone so far I'll wander mazilyover all the earth, asking, will youcome back? Will you leave me here, dying?”

“Tell me, is the rose nakedor is that her only dress?Why do trees concealthe splendor of their roots?Who hears the regretsof the thieving automobile?Is there anything in the world sadder than a train standing in the rain?”

“Like a jar you housed the infinite tenderness, and the infinite oblivion shattered you like a jar.”

“I do not love you except because I love you;I go from loving to not loving you,From waiting to not waiting for youMy heart moves from cold to fire.I love you only because it's you the one I love;I hate you deeply, and hating youBend to you, and the measure of my changing love for youIs that I do not see you but love you blindly.Maybe January light will consumeMy heart with its cruelRay, stealing my key to true calm.In this part of the story I am the one whoDies, the only one, and I will die of love because I love you,Because I love you, Love, in fire and blood.”

“It was my destiny to love and say goodbye.”

“Love! Love until the night collapses!”

“Carnal apple, Woman filled, burning moon,dark smell of seaweed, crush of mud and light,what secret knowledge is clasped between your pillars?What primal night does Man touch with his senses?Ay, Love is a journey through waters and stars,through suffocating air, sharp tempests of grain:Love is a war of lightning,and two bodies ruined by a single sweetness.Kiss by kiss I cover your tiny infinity,your margins, your rivers, your diminutive villages,and a genital fire, transformed by delight,slips through the narrow channels of bloodto precipitate a nocturnal carnation,to be, and be nothing but light in the dark.”

“If suddenly you do not exist,If suddenly you are not living,I shall go on living.I do not dare,I do not dare to write it,if you die.I shall go on living.”

“I think it was very informative, but a lot still needs to be done.”

“Quién soy en esta ciudad muerta?...No entiendo sino las cenizas.”

“Podrán cortar todas las flores, pero no podrán detener la primavera.”

“porque en tu pecho australestán tatuadasla lucha,la esperanza,la solidaridady la alegríacomo anclasque resistenlas olas de la tierra.”

“Bitter love, a violet with it's crown of thorns in a thicet of spiky passions, spear of sorrow, corolla of rage: how did you come to conquer my soul? What brought you?”

“I want to see thirstIn the syllables,Tough fireIn the sound;Feel through the darkFor the scream.”

“Hoy es hoy, y ayer se fue. No hay duda.”

“Hay algo más tonto en la vidaQue llamarse Pablo Neruda?(is there anything more insane in this lifethan being called Pablo Neruda?)”

“When I got the chanceI asked them a slew of questions. They offered to burn me; it was the only thing they knew.”

“Someday, somewhere - anywhere, unfailingly, you'll find yourself, and that, and only that, can be the happiest or bitterest hour of your life.”

“Love is the mystery of water and a star.”

“Yo te he nombrado reina.Hay más altas que tú, más altas.Hay más puras que tú, más puras.Hay más bellas que tú, hay más bellas.Pero tú eres la reina.Cuando vas por las callesnadie te reconoce.Nadie ve tú corona de cristal, nadie mirala alfombra de oro rojoque pisas cuando pasas,la alfombra que no existe.Y cuando asomassuenan todos los ríosen mi cuerpo, sacudenel cielo las campanas,y un himno llena el mundoSóló tú y yo,sóló tú y yo, amor mío,lo escuchamos.”

“And that's why i have to go backto so many placesthere to find myselfand constantly examine myselfwith no witness but the moonand then whistle with joy,ambling over rocks and clods of earth,with no task but to live,with no family but the road.”

“Give me your handout of the depthssown by your sorrows.”

“Each hour, Each day”

“But I love your feet only because they walked upon the earth and upon the wind and upon the waters, until they found me.”

“I should like to sleep like a cat,with all the fur of time,with a tongue rough as flint,with the dry sex of fire;and after speaking to no one,stretch myself over the world,over roofs and landscapes,with a passionate desireto hunt the rats in my dreams.”

“Porque sentí que de alguna maneraCompartí lo que hacían O mis hermanos o mis enemigos:Y ellos, de tanta nada que saquéDe la nada, de la nada mía,Tomaron algo y les sirvió mi vida...”

“And I watch my words from a long way off.They are more yours than mine.They climb on my old suffering like ivy.”

“So the freshness lives onin a lemon,in the sweet-smelling house of the rind,the proportions, arcane and acerb.”

“Give me silence, water, hopeGive me struggle, iron, volcanoes.”

“I hunger for your sleek laugh and your hands the color of a furious harvest. I want to eat the sunbeams flaring in your beauty.”

“You are like nobody since I love you.”

“I wantTo do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.”

“In what language does rain fall over tormented cities?”

“Por eso tengo que volver a tantos sitios veneridos para encontrarme conmigo y examinarme sin cesar sin testigo que la luna,y luego silbar de alegria pisando piedras y terrones sin tarea que existir sin familia que el camino ”

“I want you to knowone thing. You know how this is: if I look at the crystal moon, at the red branch of the slow autumn at my window, if I touch near the fire the impalpable ash or the wrinkled body of the log, everything carries me to you, as if everything that exists, aromas, light, metals, were little boats that sail toward those isles of yours that wait for me. Well, now, if little by little you stop loving me I shall stop loving you little by little. If suddenly you forget me do not look for me, for I shall already have forgotten you. If you think it long and mad, the wind of banners that passes through my life, and you decide to leave me at the shore of the heart where I have roots, remember that on that day, at that hour, I shall lift my arms and my roots will set off to seek another land. But if each day, each hour, you feel that you are destined for me with implacable sweetness, if each day a flower climbs up to your lips to seek me, ah my love, ah my own, in me all that fire is repeated, in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten, my love feeds on your love, beloved, and as long as you live it will be in your arms without leaving mine.”

“Saudade é amar um passado que ainda não passou. É recusar o presente que nos machuca. É não ver o futuro que nos convida...”

“If we were not so single-mindedabout keeping our lives movingand for once could do nothing,perhaps a huge silencemight interrupt this sadnessof never understanding ourselvesand of threatening ourselves with deathPerhaps the world can teach usas when everything seems deadbut later proves to be alive.”